Why Equinor ASA (EQNR) Crashed on Wednesday

We recently compiled a list of the Heavy Selling Drags Share Prices of These 10 Firms. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Equinor ASA (NYSE:EQNR) stands against the other stocks.

Wall Street’s major indices finished mixed on Wednesday, though generally pessimistic, as investor sentiment was dampened by higher-than-expected consumer price data which fueled concerns of a potential inflation rebound.

The Dow Jones and S&P 500 declined by 0.50 percent and 0.27 percent, respectively. Only Nasdaq posted gains, albeit a marginal 0.03 percent.

Among Wednesday’s losers, 10 companies were the worst performers, primarily due to disappointing earnings results, dismal outlook guidance, and downgraded ratings, among others. In this article, we have detailed the specific reasons behind their lagging performance.

To come up with Wednesday’s top losers, we considered only the stocks with at least $2 billion in market capitalization and $5 million in daily trading volume.

A worker in a hard hat standing in front of a giant oil refinery, the stark blue sky and grey refinery in the background.

Equinor ASA (NYSE:EQNR)

Energy company Equinor ASA saw its share prices drop by 5.64 percent on Wednesday to close at $23.27 apiece as investors sold off positions amid the company’s ongoing $5-billion share buyback program.

EQNR announced the plan for the share repurchase, including shares to be redeemed from the Norwegian State, in a bid to reduce the issued share capital of the company.

Last week, the company commenced the first tranche amounting to $1.2 billion.

In other news, the company announced plans to slash its investments in renewable energy over the next two years and boost oil and gas output amid macroeconomic factors, including growing energy demand globally, geopolitical tensions, and increased uncertainty in the commodity markets, as well as the uneven pace of the energy transition.

EQNR said it expects to grow by 10 percent with the new strategy by 2027.

The company has lowered its expected capacity in renewables to 10-12 GW by 2030, down from the 12-16 GW previously targeted.

Overall EQNR ranks 10th on our list of Wednesday’s top losers. While we acknowledge the potential of EQNR as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than EQNR but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.